Have people at Harvard been calling for that?

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2023

Performative minds don't want to know: Once again, we were stunned today by several discussions we watched on Morning Joe. 

Because the conversations in question dealt with very serious topics, we're going to wait a day before we comment in any detail. Having said that, good God:

Now they've even got Jackie Alemany!

Alemany works for the Washington Post, where she's done a lot of well-regarded journalism. In an attempt to build a wider context around what is currently going on, we'll note that these were the five "most read" articles at that newspaper as of the 10 o'clock this morning:

MOST READ
1) 5 things architects and designers regret about their own homes

2) Advice / Her 18-year-old’s boyfriend is 34. How does a worried mom respond?

3) Norman Lear, who brought social commentary to the sitcom, dies at 101

4) Woman sentenced to fast-food job after hurling Chipotle bowl at worker

5) The overhead bins are empty. Why do airlines make you check your bag?

According to the Post's own compilation, those were the five articles with the largest number of readers. We the people—including we the upper-end people who read the Washington Post—are a fundamental part of this nation's existential crisis.

Moving right along, we have a simple question. With apologies, that question goes like this:

Have people at Harvard been calling for the genocide of the Jewish people? 

With apologies, has that actually been happening on the Harvard campus? How about at MIT and Penn? 

With apologies, our question continues from there:

If that's been happening on those campuses, why haven't we seen the videotape of those ugly, inexcusable calls? 

In fact, we haven't seen any such tapes, including on Morning Joe. If these calls are taking place, why haven't we seen the recordings?

We ask this question in response to yesterday's hearing in the House. For our money, we think Kevin Drum is slicing the lunch meat pretty thin when he defends the performances of the college presidents from Harvard, MIT and Penn who were put on the grill during this session.

(For Kevin's assessment, click here. Presumably, what he's saying is technically accurate.)

In fairness, these three women aren't politicians. They aren't public performers of some other familiar type. They may have spent too many years inside an academic hothouse, speaking only to other people who swim in the same sea as them.

That said, their performances yesterday were just amazingly poor. Maybe these colleges need to hire some politicians or similar types to serve as their presidents, as when General Eisenhower hired on as Columbia's president.

At yesterday's hearing, the presidents performed very poorly when they came under attack. This will be directly used in the ongoing effort to elect Donald J. Trump next year.

In our view, the presidents performed quite poorly. That said, and with apologies, have people on their campuses actually been calling for the genocide of the Jewish people?

Almost surely, Elise Stefanik is the biggest phony in the entire House of Representatives. On this one occasion, she may even have been sincere, but recent history argues against the likelihood of that.

At any rate, Stefanik kept asking these presidents if such calls constitute a violation of their campus codes of conduct. As we noted above, the president gave amazingly narrow responses to Stefanik's non-question questions. 

At one point, the president of MIT did manage to offer this:

"I have not heard calling for the genocide for Jews on our campus."

When Stefanik came at her again, the word salad was instantly worse. That said, her answer seemed to suggest the possibility that no one has been making such calls on the MIT campus.

(You can see this exchange on the videotape at the post to which Kevin links.)

We were disgusted by what we saw on Morning Joe this morning. At such times, we think of Plato's Seventh Letter, a document concerning the downfall of the Athenian democracy:

PLATO: The existing constitution, which was subject to widespread criticism, was overthrown...and a committee of Thirty given supreme power. As it happened some of them were friends and relations of mine and they at once invited me to join them, as if it were the natural thing for me to do. 

My feelings were what were to be expected in a young man: I thought they were going to reform society and rule justly, and so I watched their proceedings with deep interest. I found that they soon made the earlier regime look like a golden age. 

Among other things they tried to incriminate my old friend Socrates, whom I should not hesitate to call the most upright man then living, by sending him, with others, to arrest a fellow-citizen, and bring him forcibly to execution; Socrates refused, and risked everything rather than make himself a party to their wickedness. When I saw all this, and other things as bad, I was disgusted and withdrew from the wickedness of the times.

For the record: As far as we know, specialists aren't sure that this famous document is authentic.

By happenstance, we saw the 1985 film Witness over the weekend. In the film, a Philadelphia policeman briefly attempts to withdraw—through an internal exile in Amish country—from the wickedness of the times.

(In the end, he decides that he has to go back. That was also Plato's decision.)

It isn't clear that our nation can survive the reign of programs like Morning Joe. We were appalled by what we saw today, but—once again with apologies—we leave you with that question:

Have people been making that ugly call on the Harvard campus? If people are actually doing that, we haven't we all been shown?

Uninquiring minds don't seem to want to know. Birds have to fly and fish have to swim and big cable stars have to pose.

(More on this another day. In our view, today's Morning Joe was appalling.)